JIM CHALMERS MP
SHADOW TREASURER
MEMBER FOR RANKIN
E&OE TRANSCRIPT
RADIO INTERVIEW
ABC RADIO BUDGET SPECIAL
TUESDAY, 29 MARCH 2022
SUBJECT: Federal Budget.
DAVID LIPSON, HOST: Well, joining me here in the studio is Shadow Treasurer Jim Chalmers. Jim Chalmers, thanks for being here. Is there anything today that you won't support, that you would try to block in Parliament, in the coming days and weeks?
JIM CHALMERS, SHADOW TREASURER: Obviously, we've only just seen the document today, David. So, we'll take some time to go through all of the details of it. As we've said for some time, as we've foreshadowed for some time, we won't be standing in the way of some cost of living relief for Australian working families who are facing - once again in this Budget - falling real wages, which amounted to something like $26 a week worse off for Australian workers. The defining features of this Budget are falling real wages, a trillion dollars of debt with not enough to show for it, a big cash splash before the election, but at least $3 billion in secret cuts to come after the election that the Government needs to come clean on
LIPSON: Just on falling real wages. My understanding was that real wages would increase marginally by about a quarter of a per cent next financial year?
CHALMERS: This year, the circumstances that people are confronting right now, real wages are falling. They're actually falling by more than the last Budget anticipated. So, despite all of the spin and marketing from the Treasurer, Australians are actually falling further and further behind. The costs of living are skyrocketing, real wages are falling, and so people are finding it even harder to make ends meet. They will see this Budget for what it is – a desperate political ploy to get the Government from one side of the election to the other, to take the big challenges in the economy from one side of election and push it to the other. This Government is incapable of seeing beyond the May election and this Budget proves it.
LIPSON: You say it's a desperate political ploy but at this point you're not committing to try to stop any of these promises, particularly the cost of living promises? You know, will you support those at least? Can you commit to that tonight?
CHALMERS: Well, let me explain the difference. Yes, we will be supporting costs of living relief for Australian working families who've faced a decade now of wage stagnation under this government. Nothing in this budget makes up for that decade of attacks on wages and job security and pensions and Medicare. Absolutely nothing makes up for that. And so, we think there is a role for cost of living relief for people who are doing it especially tough. And so, people can expect us to support that aspect of it. The difference between the government and the Labor Party in this instance, is this budget is entirely devoid of a plan for the future. And we've laid out, whether it's childcare or cheaper, cheaper and cleaner energy, whether it's dealing with skill shortages, whether it's investing in the digital economy, a future made in Australia, we have an economic agenda, which goes beyond the May election. The Government doesn't.
LIPSON: Can we just look at a couple of those cost of living relief measures. Firstly, the 22 cent a litre cut to the fuel tax. It's going to rack up $3 billion additional debt in just six months. But the relief will expire. It's meant to expire in six months, meaning prices would jump by 22 cents at that point in six months. Now, you may be the Treasurer by then. Can you commit now to allowing that 22 cent jump to happen rather than racking up more billions of dollars in debt as time goes on?
CHALMERS: Well, if in that eventuality - and we don't take the outcome of the election for granted - but I can't see a way where any Treasurer of any political persuasion would be able to afford to leave that excise cut in place. So, I think what the Government has done today has guaranteed that petrol will go up by 22 cents a litre at the end of September 2022, no matter who is in office. This is some of the…
LIPSON: Is this a commitment, though, to allow that, to not extend the relief that's been on the table today?
CHALMERS: Well, that's the expectation. I think either party would have to let that petrol increase take place. I think that's part of the Government's motivation here, frankly, to take a problem from one side of the election, put it to the other side of the election, so that working families who go to the ballot box have got some temporary relief from petrol prices, but at the end of September, those prices will go up again. That's one of the legacies if the Government changes hands, that's one of the legacies. The other one is that trillion dollars in debt with not enough to show for it. This Government will be taking to an election the worst set of books that any government has taken to an election in Australia ever.
LIPSON: At 3.75 per cent though, that's the lowest in almost 50 years.
CHALMERS: We want unemployment to be as low as possible. That is the objective. But as you flagged before in your conversation with Mel, we've got unemployment coming down in welcome ways, but we've got skills shortages, we've got inflation, we've got falling real wages. The balance of risks in the economy has shifted, such that now the biggest defining challenge in the Budget and around the kitchen tables in the suburbs of this country - prices going through the roof, real wages going backwards, families finding it harder to make ends meet.
LIPSON: And we touched on it before, but you know, you're talking about this year. Next year, the Budget is predicting real wages to increase just a little bit more than inflation, just a quarter of a per cent more than inflation. Do you look at those numbers with some scepticism?
CHALMERS: Of course, I do. You know why?
LIPSON: They’re from Treasury.
CHALMERS: You know why I look at them with a lot of scepticism? Because before tonight the Government had made 55 wage forecasts and got it wrong 52 of those times. This is the Government notorious for overpromising and underdelivering when it comes to wages. For almost a decade now we've had stagnant wages, because the Government says it's a deliberate design feature of their economic policies. We've had a decade of attacks on wages and job security, and that's why Australian working families are finding it so tough.
LIPSON: So, Treasury's got it wrong in terms of wages?
CHALMERS: Well, the point I'm making is this. It's not my job to get into the Treasury, right. The point I'm making is this. The Government has hung its hat on wages forecasts, which have notoriously overpromised and underdelivered. That's how the Government wants it.
LIPSON: Just on a couple of other matters. Infrastructure spending It’s a $17.9 billion boost. The state that's getting by far the most is your home state, Queensland. $4.4 billion, about a billion dollars more than New South Wales and Victoria. It's also where the Government needs to win a bunch of marginal seats. Is it fair that Queensland, your home state, gets such a generous infrastructure deal?
CHALMERS: Queensland, historically, has had greater needs in infrastructure terms because of the distance and the decentralisation of Queensland. The reason you're asking that question, I suspect, is because the Government, for again, the best part of a decade, has made decisions for political reasons not for good economic reasons. There is a need for infrastructure investment in Queensland and around Australia. We will work our way through the spin that's been announced tonight and make sure it's getting maximum bang for buck for all Australians.
LIPSON: Paid parental leave, there's more flexibility so that couples can split their leave. So, you know, potentially, men could take ten weeks leave, women could take ten weeks leave. Will you match that? Or is there more you could do?
CHALMERS: I'll have a conversation with Tanya Plibersek and Linda Burney and our relevant shadow ministers, but that is a change that has been proposed publicly before. On the surface, it looks okay to us, but I'd like to consult and make sure that it's getting maximum value for money and also doing the right thing by Australian mums and dads.
LIPSON: And just finally, are you comfortable with the level of debt that this budget is forecasting - $823 billion worth of net debt in 24-25, a trillion dollars in gross debt in a couple of years?
CHALMERS: No Treasurer should be comfortable with this amount of debt. More importantly, with this trillion dollars in debt, the Government doesn't have anywhere near enough to show for it. They want to pretend that all this debt was racked up because of the pandemic. When it comes to net debt, there was more debt added before the pandemic than after. When it comes to gross debt, about half the debt was added by this government before the pandemic. So, let's have some perspective here. There's a big growing interest bill on this debt that the Government has racked up. No government has ever gone to an election with more debt than this one. That's why it's so laughable what the Treasurer, Josh Frydenberg, was saying today about responsible economic management. This is the most wasteful government in the history of the Federation.
LIPSON: Shadow Treasurer Jim Chalmers, great to have your company. We will hear Labor's response of course, the Budget Reply, on Thursday night.
ENDS
